


Hāfu

by Justlexy



Category: Bakuten Shoot Beyblade, Beyblade
Genre: Identity Issues, M/M, Mention of Max - Freeform, Psychology, not revolving around the ship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-14 09:06:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28668210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Justlexy/pseuds/Justlexy
Summary: Kai has been called Hafu all his life. He doesn’t like it. He goes full immersion into the reasons why.
Relationships: Hiwatari Kai/Yuri Ivanov | Tala Valkov
Comments: 8
Kudos: 16





	Hāfu

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: This fic is based on the anime and the old fandom common perception that Kai has some Russian heritage (we didn’t know better, but it is what it is, it’s fanfiction). Also, this deals with identity and it is a personal interpretation so it is not meant to offend anybody.  
> I stumbled across this term (the definition is from Wikipedia) and I did a bit of research. It is not a bad or offensive word but it has some repercussions in Japanese homogeneous society. I just had fun exploring the psychological factors that could apply to Kai.  
> I always pictured him dwelling a lot on his thoughts since he is so silent.  
> Please, enjoy!

**Hāfu** (ハーフ, "half") is a Japanese language term used to refer to an individual born to one ethnic Japanese and one non-Japanese parent.

“Just finished. I’ll be home in 20mins tops. x” 

Kai connected his phone to the charger without answering the text. 

He figured it didn’t make sense starting anything in particular while he waited, so he just changed into his comfortable clothes and grabbed the big yellow envelope that arrived that day in the mail. 

After turning on the lampshades in the living room, he sat on the fluffy grey carpet, back leaning against the couch and stretching his legs forward. 

It was weird to be the first one home for a change. 

He gave another quick look at the envelope and decided to open it, extracting the magazine. It was one of the most renowned magazines in the world, Japanese edition, containing their list of the “50 most influential people” in Japan of the last year. Every country edition had its own list. The big fuss was that it wasn’t a sector publication, but a mainstream one, bought by a larger public even just for the prestige of saying they were reading it. 

Even Takao had sent him a picture of it, noting he just bought it because his grampa wanted to keep it for his collection of accolades of “his boys”. Takao made sure to point it was a waste of paper and he could have read it online. 

In fact, it wasn’t the first time Kai got his hands on it. In the last week, he had seen it over and over again, with people sending it to him to congratulate as if linking it would have reinforced the fact they actually read it. 

Not to mention the countless times he had to assist to presentations over presentations about the importance this article posed. 

The PR manager made sure to show it during the investors' meeting, the high management meeting, the _town hall_ with all the employees, the internal newsletter.

Kai looked at the cover representing a famous social activist and eyed the blue post-it indicating a page number. He fought the urge to just shove it into the fireplace and opened it to page 37. 

Having an entire page just for him was a huge success. The PR manager had made it clear. 

But as much as they stressed on the impressions, sentiments, social media reach, and all their marketing metrics, as much as his profile was reposted in various newspapers and side blogs, praising his work and success, all he could see was that word. 

Hāfu.

It was the first thing that attracted his eyes even now, scrolling his gaze on the article, maybe because he already knew where to find it. 

Hāfu. Half. 

They always had to specify it. He granted other interviews in the last few years, less noticeable than this particular one. But they always had to specify it.

_He isn’t Japanese, Japanese. Don’t let him fool you with his name. He is something else._

Some would specify that he was half Russian. Others just skipped on that detail. The important part was he is just half of it. 

Every time he expressed his disapproval to the PR team for the use of the word he was always dismissed as unimportant. 

_It is just a word. It adds to the character, it makes you more interesting. Exotic._

But all he could perceive was the opposite. 

_Mind it, people. He is successful because of it, he is handsome because of it. His entire self is explained through it. _

Let it be clear, he was flattered he was chosen in the first place to be inserted in the list. Not that he didn’t deserve it either. 

His path up the ladder of his family company was written at his birth, but he still managed to surpass everybody's expectations. He started as an intern in the US branch while studying at an Ivy Ligue University, he proceeded to an apprenticeship when he got back to Tokyo, being assigned to a developing project in the cybersecurity division. There he learned everything and went above and beyond. He got ideas, managed to turn these ideas into real products, pitched them directly to top management, and got them to create a sub-company and be elected CEO. 

Not the CEO of the whole family holding yet, but still. Enough to be among the “50 most influential people” in Japan. 

Yet, Kai got taken down by a single word in an 800 words article. 

Not able to leverage on the use of the word, he requested at least to use a picture representative of the company. The labs? The product? A group photo? Anything.

But no. The whole publicity stunt was created around him. The damned PR manager convinced everybody they needed to appeal to today’s audience and narrative. And that was a people-centric narrative, character-oriented, life-story focused, and the young attractive promising future of Hiwatari’s was the best poster child for a shift in perception of the general public. 

Again, not that he disagreed. They needed to clean up the perception of the company. And fast.

So here it was. The center of the page was covered with his picture. They even put him through a full photo shoot to capture the perfect one. 

The picture couldn’t emphasize more the need to call him Hāfu. Even if he managed to ban Hāfu from the article it would have been the first thought of any reader. 

Kai looked Hāfu. Yes, his eye shape could pass as Asian, but that was it. The colors were all off. His hair, his eyes, his bone structure, his complexion. At least the photo couldn’t convey he was taller than the average Japanese. 

He even felt the need to pay a visit to his therapist that afternoon. 

In the last few years, he had to surrender and got a therapist. The stress and the responsibilities were too much even for him, as tough as he wanted to be perceived. 

To be honest it took a while to find the right one. He almost gave up, especially after those two months with a middle-aged man who would blame everything on trauma. 

The abbey? Trauma. His late mother's death? Trauma. His grandfather? Trauma. 

He wasn’t wrong, but did everything else need to revolve around trauma? His rivalry with Takao, his relationships, his passion to feed stray cats? It just couldn’t work. 

Then he met Dr. Serizawa, a gentle lady in her forties, with a comforting demeanor and a passion for crocheted vests. Above all, her favorite word was not trauma, but trigger. 

Kai preferred trigger, he could work with trigger. A trigger meant a decision, an action, a weapon. 

That day he went on for two hours about the implications that being Hāfu had on his life. Not always bad, he had to admit. Not everybody meant it in a bad way, but he discovered how bothered he was for the lightness in the use of it.

It happened in his daily life when he took a taxi or went to a restaurant, with people taken aback by his perfect Japanese. 

And some of those people had the gut to ask him where he was from. He wouldn’t answer, especially knowing what the drill would have been.

_I am Japanese._

_Yes, but where are you_ really _from?_

Now it was just an annoying nuisance, but when he was younger those questions always made him doubt his own self. 

Where was he from? Was he not _really_ Japanese? 

Could he feel Russian in any way? What was his connection to Russia?

He just had blurred memories of the times in Moscow at the Abbey, and for sure they weren’t joyful. His mother was the Russian pureblood, but he couldn’t remember a lot about her or her side of the family. 

The only thing that really connected him with Russia was the language. He spoke fluently with no accent. 

He grew to hate it, though. 

To the point that he convinced himself he couldn’t read it. He studied Cyrillic but somehow it got difficult for him. It took him double time than normal to read something and make sense of it, and he stopped writing in it, sure he was confounding letters. 

He just couldn’t. 

He decided it was enough hassle learning Japanese and English since his wealthy family made sure that he was educated properly at least. 

What are love and affection when you can express the lack of it in 3+ languages?

So, he wasn’t a quitter, but he guessed that for one time he was. 

Already everybody was questioning his pureness of blood, he didn’t need to let slip a few Russian expressions with his _whole_ Japanese classmates. 

In fact, after the Abbey fiasco, he was shipped back to Japan and enrolled in an average private school in the suburbs of Tokyo. He was different, and his grumpy and antisocial attitude didn’t benefit from being pointed out as an Hāfu and the child of a mistrusted family. 

Children can be mean sometimes, especially if backed up by their parents. 

It wasn’t that much of a stretch that he became violent and founded a gang. He didn’t know better. Scaring those classmates turned out to be more efficient than making friends. 

Usually, that was the cue for Dr. Serizawa to bring the Bladebreakers into the table. He had been suspecting for a while now that she was a fan of them back in the days. She was way too fond of them. She supported the theory that they triggered a shift in his perception of himself. The team and the championships opened before him a whole new world, made of a mix of cultures and multitudes of stories. 

_Maybe you were too angry at the time to notice._

Moreover, she was shamelessly Team Max. She fed Kai hints over hints until he surrendered and stated how Max must have played a big role in this. 

He was the first Hāfu he met. And, damn, he played the part with pride. 

He was unmistakably half something else. Blond, blue eyes. Yet he was open, happy, sociable, likable. All those things Kai was never able to be, just to spell in 3+ languages. 

Was it really him that implanted in Kai the idea to go to university overseas? That made him push to be transferred to an international high school where he wouldn’t be the Hāfu, but an Hāfu?

Nah, too much responsibility for precious little Max. 

On the contrary, the Bladebreakers were another obstacle to his quest for his identity. He had to point that out. He was Kai Hiwatari after all. Kai “I just want to drown in my own sorrows” Hiwatari. 

Because, yes, they opened him to new perspectives, they showed him the beauty of self-acceptance. But this wasn’t a good thing. He was still Kai “I just want to drown in my own sorrows” Hiwatari, able to misinterpret all the signs and just jump to wrong conclusions.

At the time, he finally decided to embrace his Russian heritage, convincing himself it was just a question of biology. He had Russian DNA and, well, he might as well forget Japan and jump into Mother Russia arms. 

If Max could be that comfortable among Americans, he could do it among Russians.

But all those years of trying to eliminate that Russian part kind of did the trick. 

When he got back to Moscow throughout the championships, he found out that the struggle to understand Cyrillic got real. 

He tried to hide it, the spoken language was still not a problem, and few were the instances when he had to read anything, even less to write. 

But he wasn’t fit for the part, he behaved as Japanese, his tastes were Japanese, his manners were Japanese. For his teammates, for the public, he was in that team but he wasn’t Russian, not even half of it. He was a foreigner again. 

Kai suddenly looked up sensing the presence standing at the end of the couch. He hadn’t heard him arrive.

Maybe he had to thank precious little Max after all. If it really was his carefree Hāfu spirit that made him get closer to his Russian side, at least he got that one right. 

Yuri was looking at him with a questioning look. A sweet questioning look. A sweet confused questioning look. 

Yuri was his Russian side.

-How were the exams?- Kai asked at the redhead, watching him sitting next to him on the carpet. 

-Not bad- Yuri answered stretching his legs and brushing his feet against his partner’s -I just had to fail three of my students- 

Kai liked to think he played a part in helping Yuri find his vocation for teaching. After all, he had been his first rebellious hothead student when the redhead found out how bad got his Cyrillic skills. Yuri couldn’t just accept that, with his mother tongue vocabulary, Kai couldn’t read an original version of Dostoevsky. Or that has always been his excuse.

-Impressive, Mr. Ivanov- he congratulated him leaning for a quick welcome kiss on the lips. 

Yuri smiled looking down at the magazine on his lover's legs. 

-Impressive, Mr. Hiwatari\- he said lifting it and looking closer at the picture -Should we frame it?-

Kai answered with a disgusted expression. 

Yuri knew perfectly he wasn’t fond of the article and just started flipping the pages to check the other distinct personalities who made it into the list. 

Of course, in all the confusion Kai’s self was already in, he couldn’t have his sexuality figured out. Truth be told, his approach with it had been more of trial and error, over and over again. But he didn’t experience it as a deep struggle because, no matter what, whenever Yuri was around everything fell back perfectly into place. 

Yuri always managed to ground him and resize any problem, from helping him make peace with an alphabet to his identity crises, so that he was truly connected with himself. So much that his main goal was to reciprocate that help day by day.

-How did it go today?- The redhead asked.

-We got a trigger- 

Yuri lifted his gaze from the magazine and his smile broadened. 

-Yes- he motioned a victorious fist in the air -Should I book the polygon?-

As much as it could sound like a bad joke from the outside, he meant it literally. 

They had this game, whenever Dr. Serazawa brought up a “trigger” during a session, they would organize a polygon date to go shoot. 

Yuri first pitched it as a way to combine his personal therapy with Kai’s. After they tried it they realized it wasn’t a bad idea. At all. 

-I already did- 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!  
> I am happy I managed to write something KaYu. I love them, but I never created for them. It looked like a good excuse to start.  
> I hope you enjoyed it. If you want, let me know in the comments what you think!  
> Bye 😊


End file.
